Visiting the Kingman turquoise mine

Natural turquoise is a fascinating stone that I discovered when I moved in Arizona.

The Kingman turquoise mine is still in production and it is not possible to see the site. But they have a wonderful store. It does not look like much from the outside... a small prefab house on the side of the road with a dirt parking lot.

But once you enter, you are in for a treat. Turquoises are everywhere... beads stands are hanging from the wall... big chunks organized in plastic containers... cabochons in revolving glass displays... and they even have a huge backroom with rough turquoises in buckets everywhere. It took me a while to decide what I was going to buy and it took me a lot of will-power to control my spending.

I asked the permission to take a few photos and they said yes!

The Kingman turquoise comes in shades of blues or green. I was hesitating... no problem. I took both.

They dye the turquoise in green and purple. I do not like the green. Too flashy for me. But the purple that they call Mohave purple... I fell in love with it! What is interesting is that the dye does not cover the whole stone and that we can see speckles of turquoise peaking through.

Here are some large size chunks of rough that I plan to cut for intarsia cabochons:

And here are a few examples of pieces I made with Kingman turquoise...

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